‘For a lot of people drag is just a job, but for me it’s sacred’: Peppermint.
Photograph: Courtesy of Oriel Pe'er / Wilder Productions.

Everyone has something in the closet, whether it’s your sexuality, your history, or a deeply held secret. Coming out is just getting to grips with those skeletons and feeling free enough to share them without fear. I first came out in second grade. One kid in my class made me feel bold enough to say I was different, even if I didn’t have the words as a child in Delaware to explain exactly how.

I set my house on fire as a teenager when I was cooking and went for a gossip on the phone. I came back and the whole kitchen was ablaze and I became enveloped in an inferno, with second-degree burns. I know my mother worked really hard for what little we had, and I literally burned it to the ground, but it taught me that stop, drop and roll really does work.

Drag gave me the keys to my gender, my sexuality and my gender expression, too. For a lot of people drag is just a job or a character, but for me drag has always been sacred. When I first visited New York aged 17 in drag (having got dressed on the bus) I was being a woman. It was more important than anything else in my life.

Nobody got paid in the 90s in New York City. When I started working at the Tunnel club in Chelsea I offered to work for free. At some point I got driven upstate in full drag to have my top opened up by a dwarf who fondled my breasts on camera, and I didn’t get a penny. Don’t look for the movie though, it’ll burn your eyes.

Anyone who lives their life openly in a form that opposes the status quo is an activist

I tried champagne once and it made me drunk, but aside from that I’ve never touched drugs or booze, even when I was working the New York clubs in their 90s hedonistic heyday. There was alcoholism in my family. My aunt sat me down and explained that I was an alcoholic by predisposition so I decided never to risk it.

Ru Paul’s Drag Race has given us a voice. That’s not to say it’s without its flaws – there has been controversy regarding language like “tranny” on the show – but I have a bigger picture in mind. I’m able to say I’m the first out transgender finalist, the closest to the crown of any trans woman.

People aren’t really afraid trans people will pee in their bathrooms. The bigots aren’t scared they’ll be forced to attend our weddings or bake us big old queer cakes either. Homophobic and transphobic people are afraid they’re just like us. And they are. Tolerance is not good enough. I don’t want acceptance. I want celebration.

I didn’t choose to be an activist. Really anyone who lives their life openly in a form that opposes the status quo is one. Delivering this body to the world is my greatest achievement, through all the disadvantages, the discrimination and the violence. If you’re unapologetic in living your life, in accessing what others can, then you’re an activist.

Donald Trump doesn’t scare me. My bloodline has gone through slavery and through the Stonewall riots. We’ve been through horrible times, but there’s nothing he can do to erase us or the progress that we’ve made. We’ve tasted freedom and we won’t easily give it up.